Graviora Manent
by thecivilunrest
Summary: This was what separated heroes from the rest of the world; the fact that they were more than willing to sacrifice what no one else would.


**Disclaimer:** Herp a derp, I don't own Young Justice. Title belongs to Anberlin, because they helped a lot with this story, and I stole the title from them. :) 

**A/N:** I guess you could say that this is a prequel to my story _Tied_, though you don't have to read that one to understand this one. An attempt at action, I guess, though we'll see how _that _goes. This story is what I think is going to happen in the show (if it ever starts running again, haha) though on the show it's going to be a thousand times more epic. And it will end better too. So yeah, reviews are appreciated. Really, _please _tell me what you think, I really need to know. 

_Graviora Manent_

They were going to have to make this fast. Superboy was probably using his heightened senses right now and if he found them all together everything would be shot even further into hell.

The rest of the team was now looking at the Boy Wonder as though he alone would be able to tell them which way the road back to heaven was.

Robin swallowed back bile. Was this how Kaldur felt all the time? How had he known what to do and where to lead them all? In that moment Robin wanted to hear the Atlantean's low voice and clear directions more than anything else.

But that could never happen again. An image of the way Kaldur's head, despite the fact that Atlantean bodies weren't as fragile as human ones, sat on his neck popped up in the back of Robin's mind but he quickly pushed the thought away. This wasn't the time for grief. He was just glad that had chosen this rendezvous point far, far away from Kaldur's broken body.

Batman had told him that this would happen, that one day the mantle of leadership would be thrust upon his skinny shoulders. He wished he could shove it back and pretend that he had never gotten it.

He had imagined, perhaps childishly, that the day he became a leader he would be older, wiser. He would have _chosen_ to be the person on top. He would be confident and strong and know exactly what to do all of the time. He had thought that he'd be feeling the aster then- but this was more of a _dis_aster.

Robin was just a thirteen year old kid, he shouldn't have had to deal with this. He shouldn't have had to watch one friend become a hideous monster and another die right in front of his eyes. He shouldn't have to brush that off and put it behind him because he had other things to do.

He wasn't a regular thirteen year old kid, though. He was a hero. And heroes sacrificed everything for the greater good. Even themselves. Kaldur was a good example of that. It would be an insult to their old leader's memory if they didn't keep trying to stop Superboy from escaping into the outside world where he would undoubtedly cause a scene in Happy Harbor akin to Armageddon.

His teammates where in front of him, sweat and grime on their faces, breathing heavily but at least they were still breathing. At least they were ready for action. One of them didn't get that privilege anymore.

Artemis' whole mask was soaked with sweat but the places underneath her eyes, where tears might fall on a person with a bare face, was darker than the rest of her mask. M'gann was crying silently, the tears streaming down her face steadily, and he wondered if she even knew that they were there at all.

Wally looked grim and determined. This reminded Robin that while the speedster sometimes didn't act like the most mature wine in the cellar he had been a hero almost as long as Dick had and that he understood what being a hero meant for each of them and was ready for anything.

Taking a deep breath, and comfort from the fact that his friends seemed to think that he would be able to lead them well, he began. "Artemis, I need you to go up and hide in the rafters. I need you to shoot at anything that he might use as a weapon and destroy it, since your arrows won't hurt him." The archer's grip tightened ever so slightly on her grip.

"Miss M, I'll need you to go into camouflage mode. Do whatever you can to get into his mind." _Whatever mind he has left_, Robin thought silently to himself. Though the same thing had happened to the clone before his was a completely different Superboy from the one in the desert, and Robin seriously doubted that there was any hope in having the Superboy become normal once again. But he couldn't bear to say that out loud, not with Megan right there.

"Wally. You're going to need to distract him. Anyway that you can. Is that understood?" The team nods and they're all ready for whatever happens next.

Robin's about to disappear when Wally reminds him that he just leave them anymore. "What about you?" the speedster asks. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to make sure that no one else gets hurt," the Boy Wonder answered and before anyone else can say anything else he had already gone.

:-:

There was a small, selfish part of her that was glad that this wasn't her fault.

Bad things happened to the people that Artemis cared about. She had figured this out long ago and it was just a endless cycle that she couldn't stop no matter how hard she tried. Eventually the archer decided just to accept this and move on with her life.

More often than not the bad things that happened to the people that she cared about were her fault, which was why that she was relieved that this wasn't. For once Artemis was totally blameless.

But that didn't make it any easier to bear. She hadn't seen the exact moment that Kaldur had died, she was too busy trying to make a dent in indestructible skin for that, but she had heard the way his bones had crunched and saw the way his body had fallen. The way Superboy hadn't even cared that he had just killed someone.

And now here they all were, going onto the chopping block once again, trying to save the world. This was the reason that she sometimes that being a villain, while it might be wrong, was easier. Self preservation was key and you didn't care who was left behind.

When you were a hero, though, you were taking care of everyone but yourself. This was what separated heroes from the rest of the world; the fact that they were more than willing to sacrifice what no one else would.

She and Wally were alone because Robin had disappeared as soon as the rest of the team had agreed with what he had told them to do. Artemis was glad that Robin had stepped up. Without him they would have fallen apart.

"Don't do anything stupid," the archer found herself telling Wally, harsher than she intended. The words weren't supposed to be forceful, they weren't supposed to be launched at him like missiles.

If this was any other time, in any other world, because of both her tone and her words Wally would have snapped back. He would have glared at her and said something scathing enough to make her react back at him, which would have caused a fight to erupt.

But to his credit the speedster didn't do either of these things. He just looked at her and put on his goggles before turning around. Artemis grabbed his arm before he could leave her alone. "Just be careful, okay?" she amended in a tone completely different than the one she had used before and she watched as the boy's face softened.

"As careful as I can be," Wally promised, which wasn't much of a promise at all.

:-:

Finding the abomination that now wore Superboy's skin wasn't hard. Wally had just to go where things were being destroyed the loudest.

The speedster made sure that he was at least on the other side of the room as the clone. The last thing that he needed was to get crunched like a potato chip that's been stepped on- and he wasn't too keen on looking one of those either.

Besides, he'd promised he'd be careful. As if there was such a thing when you were a hero.

"Hey you!" Superboy turned and looked at the speedster, who was grinning at him with his hands on his hips, despite the murderous rage that slowly dawned on the Kryptonian's face. He looked at everyone like this now.

Wally could definitely be a distraction if he wanted to be. "Yeah you!"

Superboy threw himself at Wally, who deftly moved himself out of the way by a good hundred yards at least. Breathing heavily the clone roared and once again launched himself at the speedster, who laughed even though none of this was really funny.

"Can't catch me, I'm the, uh, Wall-man," the redhead sing songed, paraphrasing what he at the age of five thought was the greatest piece of literature that was ever written down.

He didn't know what Robin was planning, he didn't know what Robin was doing, but he trusted the kid because if he didn't then there was no point in even trying. Robin always knew what he was doing, but he rarely shared, a dominant trait of the Bat Family.

So Wally just did what he asked and hoped that everything was going to turn out okay at the end.

This was the first time that he was glad that Superboy couldn't fly, because if he could then the speedster would be toast.

"You know, I'd bet that Superman could do better." Instantly Wally knew that it was a bad idea to say anything that had to do with the man whose symbol Superboy had at one point been wearing on this chest. That was what had set him off, after all.

But he forgot to add in how much rage can make a person stronger- that and whatever chemicals that they put into Superboy to make him turn into this. The split second that Wally wasn't watching his back Superboy grabbed his shoulders. Slammed him into the ground so hard that there was a hole where his body made contact. Wally heard a sick sounding _crack, _felt the way that his head split into to two, saw the sea of stars that danced around him.

And then gloriously, thankfully, there was nothing at all.

:-:

Part of Megan wanted to go into her room, curl up in a ball on her bed, pull up her covers get lost in them. She never wanted to be found.

This was what she had signed up for, though. She had wanted to come to Earth, she had wanted to do this, and now she couldn't just give up because everything had suddenly turned into a horrible nightmare.

It was her fault that Kaldur had died. People would tell her later that it wasn't her fault, that it would have happened anyway, that she shouldn't have blamed herself, but she always would. Instead of protecting Kaldur like she was supposed to have been she had been pleading with Superboy, trying to make him become himself again. Trying to make the monster that he had become go away.

But he hadn't and Megan was sure that Superboy wouldn't ever come back. The boy that she had started to fall for- the awkward one with the slow smile and kind eyes- was dead and in his place was a demon of the worst kind. One that killed without remorse and refused to back down.

Megan refused to let anyone else that she cared about die. And it certainly wasn't going to be her fault. She would fight him tooth and nail if she had to even though she knew that she would lose.

The few times that she had tried to get inside Superboy's mind there was a block so thick that she wasn't sure if he was doing it intentionally or not. She was sure, though, that she didn't want to know what was going on in his mind anyway.

So now she was practically useless. Robin had known that which was why he had sent her out of the way. Megan wondered if he did that because the last time she was supposed to be helping someone ended up dying.

A resounding crash drug her out of her melancholy thoughts, ones she shouldn't have been getting lost in anyway. Glancing around the room she finally spotted what the sound was- Superboy pushing Wally into the ground.

Oh no. Not again. She wasn't going to let this happen again. Superboy was not going to have more blood on his hands, not if she could help it. And she could.

Faintly she heard Artemis' cry of "_Wally!" _and that broke her heart even more. No more death, no more dying. The Martian watched as Superboy went in for the kill.

Without meaning too Megan screamed _NO_ so loudly in her mind that she couldn't control where it went. Her other teammates, the ones that were still conscious, heard her. She felt the wall that surrounded Superboy's mind crumble and saw the beast that was inside, but she didn't care.

_STOP IT. STOP KILLING. STOP BEING. SUPERBOY, WHEREVER YOU ARE, _PLEASE_ COME BACK. _

She watched Superboy fall to his knees and clutching his mind. She knew that her powers were so strong that he couldn't resist, couldn't think. The monster had brute force but once the defenses were down he couldn't fight her. She would win.

Megan floated down to Superboy and very pointedly didn't look at Wally, who was still breathing. She watched as the clone's face twisted in torment, the way agony washed over his features. For a minute she's happy that she did this to him, but then the feeling goes a way because even though it might not be Superboy it still _looks _like him and she can't stand watching this and knowing that it's her fault.

There's a civil war going on in the Kryptonian's mind, she can feel that, but she doesn't dare intrude. She doesn't want to get torn apart in the process. The only thing that she can do is sit and watch.

And then finally the boy was still. Superboy was stronger than she ever gave him credit for. Megan tensed, ready to fight him if she needed to. He turned and looked at her and for a moment it was like there wasn't anyone else in here. "_Thank you_," he croaked and then fell face first onto the floor.

This was the first time that victory didn't taste sweet.


End file.
